The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh Police conducted raids at several places across the state on Wednesday to nab Rohingiya Muslims, said to be staying illegally and allegedly involved in terror funding.
Around six accused were rounded up during the raids conducted in Khalilabad in Sant Kabir Nagar, Basti, Aligarh and other districts. Last week too, a raid was conducted at a shop in Gorakhpur after the owner’s involvement in terror funding surfaced.
According to sources, a junior engineer was taken into custody in Khalilabad and the ATS sleuths recovered forged documents and other indiscriminate things from those detained. It was alleged that the JE used to make fake passports and three of his associates (Rohingya Muslims) were nabbed. The sleuths also tracked financial transactions to the tune of Rs 1.5 crore to the bank account of the JE in question. The JE was identified as Azizul Haq aka Azziullah from Bhakhira Chamarson in Sant Kabir Nagar. He originally hails from Myanmar. He managed fake passports and brought his mother, sister and two brothers to India in 2017.
Earlier in March 2018, the ATS sleuths had arrested ten persons for their alleged links with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and involvement in terror funding. “Ten persons were arrested from Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Pratapgarh and Rivan (MP) by the ATS. They were involved in terror funding on Pakistan’s directives,” the then ATS IG Asim Arun told reporters. Those arrested were identified as Naseem Ahmad, Naeem Arshad, Sanjay Saroj, Niraj Mishra, Sahil Masih, Uma Pratap Singh, Mukesh Prasad, Nikhil Rai alias Musharraf Ansari, Ankur Rai and Dayanand Yadav.
“A member of LeT used to remain in contact with them and ask them to open bank accounts with fake names and direct them as to how much money is to be transferred to which account. Indian agents used to get 10% to 20% commission for that. Till now, transactions to the tune of over Rs 1 crore have come to the fore,” he said. He claimed that the arrested persons had links with the LeT and some of them even knew what was happening.
“Some them clearly knew what they were doing while some considered it as a lottery fraud,” the officer said, adding that a detailed probe was on and more arrests were likely. The role of the bank staff would also be probed, he said.
ATM cards, Rs 42 lakh in cash, POS machines, magnetic card readers, three laptops, passbooks of different banks, a country-made pistol and cartridges were recovered from the possession of the accused, he said.